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A new survey of 4,000 online video users by the New York Times finds notable differences between the Millennial generation and Gen X and Baby Boomers, with 34% of all Millennials saying they watched mostly online video and no broadcast TV compared to only 20% of Gen X and 10% of Boomers reporting similar habits.
The New York Times study was first reported by Poynter and is based on a study that will be presented at the INMA Audience Summit in Las Vegas on October 10.
Millennials generally refer to the last generation born before the end of the twentieth century in the years covering around 1980 to 2000 and include over 75 million people.
The data highlights an ongoing shift in generational viewing habits but should be handled with some care in that it only covers online video users and excludes those who don't watch online video. That approach increases the proportion of those watching mostly online video.
Like all surveys, it is also self-reported data. A number of surveys that rely on consumer's memory of their activity, users have reported lower levels of TV viewing than they actually watched when measured by Nielsen's metered systems.
The survey also found that video hosting sites were the most popular for video, with 63% of online users using them compared to 44% for social media, 29% for TV sites, 28% for news and 17% for sports.
In terms of ads, the results found that 59% of users were likely to watch an advertisement if the countdown timer made it clear that the ad was short.
